The Health Ministry has decided not to purchase any further vaccines as of right now and sent the Finance Ministry Rs 4,237 crore, or approximately 85% of the budgetary allotment for immunisation purposes for 2022–2023, putting a stop to the government's Covid vaccination programme, news agency PTI reported.
Given the poor uptake of vaccinations among people due to the lowering Covid case load, official sources informed PTI that more than 1.8 crore doses are still available with the governments at the Center and in states.
The supply is enough to sustain the immunisation programme for about six months. The market will still have access to Covid vaccinations even if the government's supply runs out.
Speaking with PTI, an official source said: "Any decision on whether to procure Covid vaccine doses through the government channel or get (fresh) budget allocations for the purpose after six months will depend on the coronavirus situation prevailing in the country at that time."
The Government of India has been assisting states and union territories by giving them free COVID-19 vaccinations as part of the statewide immunisation programme, which got underway on January 16 of last year.
Since there haven't been many Covid cases, there hasn't been much of a demand for vaccinations, even though the government ran a 75-day campaign called "Covid Vaccination Amrit Mahotsava" to provide booster shots to all adults at no cost.
"Considering this and the vaccines in the stockpile nearing their expiry date, the decision has been taken not to procure any more vaccines for now. Also, the Union Health Ministry has surrendered to the Finance Ministry the balance of Rs 4,237.14 crore from its 2022-23 budget allocation of Rs 5,000 crore for inoculation purposes," the source was quoted by PTI in its report.
According to preliminary statistics up to 7 am on Sunday, the total number of Covid vaccination doses provided in the nation has surpassed 219.32 crore.
According to official sources, 92% of adults in India have gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccination, and 98% have received all three doses.
Additionally, since vaccination for this age group began on January 3, 83.7% of teenagers aged 15 to 18 have received the first dose of the vaccine, and 72% have received both the first and second doses.
In the 12- to 14-year-old age range, 87.3% had received the first dosage, while 68.1% have received all three doses.
A little over 27% of the overall eligible target population (18 years and older) have received precautionary doses thus far.
Healthcare workers received vaccinations as part of the initial phase of the nation-wide immunisation campaign, which began on January 16 of last year. Front-line employees began receiving vaccinations on February 2 of last year.
For those over the age of 60 and those with certain comorbid diseases who are 45 years of age or older, the COVID-19 vaccination's second phase started on March 1 of last year.
On April 1 of last year, vaccinations for everyone older than 45 years old were introduced.
The government therefore made the decision to broaden the scope of the immunisation campaign by enabling everyone over the age of 18 to get the Covid vaccine starting on May 1 last year.
On January 3, adolescents between the ages of 15 and 18 began receiving vaccinations. Indian healthcare and frontline workers, as well as people 60 years of age and older with comorbidities, started receiving precautionary vaccination doses on January 10.
Beginning on March 16, the nation began immunising children between the ages of 12 and 14.
It also abolished the comorbidity clause, allowing anybody over 60 to get the precautionary dosage of the Covid vaccine.
On April 10, India started giving COVID-19 vaccination prophylactic doses to all adults over the age of 18. On October 21 of last year and on January 7 of this year, the nation's total number of vaccination doses provided exceeded 100 billion.
On July 17, the nation's total dosages provided topped the 200 billion mark.
(With Inputs From PTI)